Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy sets out the data processing practices carried out by this Healthwatch website. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries with regard to these practices, please contact us.

Who we are

This Healthwatch website is a local independent consumer champion and is a part of Healthwatch England, a statutory committee of the Care Quality Commission. The data controller of personal information collected via this website is the Care Quality Commission. References to "we" or "us" below are to this Healthwatch website.

This privacy statement covers this Healthwatch website. This statement does not cover links within this website to other websites.

Information we collect

We collect personal information from visitors to this website through the use of online forms and every time you email us your details.

When you simply browse through the information on this website, it does not store or capture your personal information. We do log your IP address (as it is automatically recognised by the web server) but this is so you can download this website onto your device rather than for any tracking purpose.

We will only collect personal information volunteered by you, such as:

feedback from surveys and online forms

email addresses

preferred means of communication

Cookies

Please be aware that some systems on our website require the use of cookies, but we will always state if this is the case. We will never collect and store information about you without your permission.

Find out more about our use of Cookies from the Healthwatch England website.

We will always take necessary steps to ensure that your information is protected and treated securely. Any details you give us will be held in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and our data protection policy (part of our overall Information Governance Policy) and code of practice on confidential and personal information.

Purposes for which we use the information collected

Personal information about you will be used for the following purposes:

in our day-to-day work;

to send you our newsletter where you have requested it;

to respond to any queries you may have;

to improve the quality and safety of care.

This may include any personal information that you choose to share with us, but we will treat this as confidential and protect it accordingly.

We will never include your personal information in survey reports.

Who we disclose the information to

In order to fulfil our remit, we may disclose the personal information that we obtain through this website to the Secretary of State for Health, other parts of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Healthwatch England, the NHS Commissioning Board, Monitor and every local authority in England, and suppliers we engage to process personal information on our behalf.

However, we will only disclose your personal information where we have your consent to do so, or where there is another very good reason to make the disclosure ­– for example, we may disclose information to CQC or a local authority where we think it is necessary to do so in order to protect a vulnerable person from abuse or harm. Any such disclosure will be made in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Wherever possible, we will ensure that any information that we share or disclose is anonymised, so as to ensure that you cannot be identified from it.

How to obtain a copy of the information we hold about you

You have a right to access the personal information we hold about you. To obtain a copy of it, please get in touch with us.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

From time to time we may update this Privacy Policy. When we do so we will publish the changes on this website. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use the website. If material changes are made to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email or by placing a prominent notice on the website.

Signing up to our newsletter

We use a third-party supplier to provide our newsletter service. By subscribing to this service you will be agreeing to them handling your data.

The third-party supplier handles the data purely to provide this service on our behalf. This supplier observes the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 in how they obtain, handle and process your information and will not make your data available to anyone other than Healthwatch.